In an engineering design environment, where drawings that specify manufactured parts are being developed, a need arises to check and double check these drawings prior to releasing the drawing to a manufacturing environment. This ensures that the resulting manufactured parts perform their intended functions to the satisfaction of the designer and without misunderstandings between the designer and those individuals in the manufacturing environment who will eventually produce the part. This typically requires that the drawing checking steps be performed by a draftsperson having a level of skill comparable to that of the engineering designer.
In addition to requiring a distinct group of engineering drawing checkers, the actual checking procedure can become a time consuming process that requires the drawing checker to communicate several times with the engineering designer as errors are detected by the drawing checker, corrected by the designer, and rechecked by the drawing checker. Thus, the back-and-forth process of drawing submittal, drawing checking, re-submittal, and drawing re-check, leading up to the eventual release of the drawing to production can take several days. In a fast-paced product design environment, where time to market is critical and where products must be released according to strict schedules, these delays can result in considerable lost revenue and lost market share. In some instances, a company's inability to release a product in time for the product to be demonstrated at a particular event can cause irreparable harm to the company's reputation and business prospects.